October 10, 2025
TOKYO – Myanmar’s military junta is strengthening its relationship with China. As the junta has been mounting a comeback in its civil war against armed minority groups with support from China, it aims to perpetuate its rule through a general election, which will be the final step in its military coup.
For its part, China aims to build a bridgehead toward the Indian Ocean by constructing railways and ports in Myanmar.
The junta is also building a stronger relationship with Russia. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has shown little interest in the situation in Myanmar, as was the case in Trump’s first term.
A key neighbor
Myanmar’s junta, China and Russia are enjoying a honeymoon in relations without worrying about how the United States will react.
For China, Myanmar is in a strategic location that connects mainland China and the Indian Ocean.
In the 2010s, China opened a set of oil and natural gas pipelines that run from Kyaukphyu, a city in Myanmar on the Indian Ocean, to China’s Yunnan Province. As a result, China was able to secure natural resources and bypass the Strait of Malacca. This was one of China’s major goals for many years.
In the future, China plans to build railways and roads more or less parallel to the pipelines for its China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, which will include a special economic zone and the building of a deep-sea port in Kyaukphyu.
China also plans to build an industrial zone inside of Myanmar near the border.
In Kachin State and elsewhere in Myanmar, there are rare earths being mined and rich reserves of jade and other gems. This makes Myanmar an important neighbor for China in its strategy for resources.
As long as it is able to expand its interests in Myanmar, Beijing likely does not care what kind of regime runs the country, assuming the security of Chinese interests and business there is guaranteed.
Strategic setback
How did the previous junta in Myanmar regard China? After many years of military rule, control of the country was transferred from the military to a civilian-led government in March 2011. Former Gen. Thein Sein assumed the presidency.
Six months later, he announced he would discontinue the Myitsone Hydropower Dam project, which was being built in Kachin State by a Chinese state-run company under a contract signed during the military junta.
At that time, a policy adviser to President Thein Sein told The Yomiuri Shimbun that this was a message to Western countries that Myanmar would keep its distance from China going forward. It was in effect a declaration that Myanmar was leaving China’s orbit.
Before the transition to civilian rule, the junta looked like it was committed to China. But the policy adviser said that as long as Myanmar was isolated by economic sanctions from the West, China was the only country that could be relied on. This was likely the case.
The adviser added that Myanmar had no intention to defy China and that it should not defy the neighboring superpower.
After the transition to the civilian-led government, Myanmar shifted to a balanced diplomacy toward all other countries with the aim of luring in foreign investment and developing its economy.
Then U.S. President Barack Obama and many other countries’ leaders praised Myanmar’s reform policy and visited the country, and economic sanctions were lifted. When I went to stay in the country myself, I felt that China’s presence in Myanmar was rapidly dwindling.
While China and the new Myanmar government agreed on a memorandum that would form the basis of the China-Myanmar corridor, which was to include railways and roads for shipping and would extend to Kyaukphyu, the plan was scrapped due to opposition from residents.
For China, the Thein Sein administration’s diplomatic stance was likely a major blow. But as Beijing needed to avoid any impact on pipeline construction, which was its highest priority, it could not take a high-handed approach. It sought to repair the situation by bringing Aung San Suu Kyi over to its side.
The National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Suu Kyi, scored an overwhelming victory in Myanmar’s general election in November 2015 and took the reins of government in March of the following year.
Five months before the election, China invited Suu Kyi, who was then a leader of the opposition, to Beijing in a rare move, and Chinese President Xi Jinping and other high-ranking officials rolled out the red carpet to welcome her.
After the Suu Kyi-led administration was inaugurated, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi became the first foreign minister to visit Naypyitaw, beating his counterparts from other countries to the punch, and he congratulated Suu Kyi. The visit came only a week after the new government was inaugurated.
Having worked steadily to strengthen ties with Suu Kyi, Chinese President Xi visited Naypyitaw in January 2020. He described China and Myanmar as a “community with a shared future,” and the relationship between the countries entered a new phase.
When Suu Kyi’s camp won the 2020 general election by a large margin, Wang offered his congratulations earlier than any other country, in January 2021, and the two countries signed a memorandum on surveys for building railways.
Military coup
In February, just three weeks after the signing, Myanmar’s military staged a coup, arrested Suu Kyi and ousted the NLD from the government. The coup seemed to be yet another major blow for China.
A rumor that the military had notified China of the coup in advance began circulating, and fierce anti-China protests spread across the country.
During the protests, China-linked plants were torched. China’s ambassador in Myanmar stressed that China had friendly ties to both the military and the NLD, and sought to quell anti-China sentiment.
“We encourage all parties in Myanmar to engage in political dialogue within the constitutional and legal framework and restart the process of democratic transformation,” remarked Wang, at a meeting with foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. China was showing some consideration for pro-democracy forces in Myanmar. The aim seemed to be to avoid any impact on Chinse companies and their projects.
Deepening ties with Russia
In August last year, China made clear its support for the new military junta with a visit by Wang to Naypyitaw.
Wang met with Min Aung Hlaing, the supreme commander of the Myanmar military, and said, “China opposes chaos and conflicts in Myanmar, interference in Myanmar’s internal affairs by outside forces.”
In exchange for the protection of Chinese interests, Beijing expressed support for a new general election and rule by the junta.
The change in policy grew out of a problem with a Chinese fraud group that was concentrated in part of Myanmar’s Shan State, along the national border.
As the fraud became a serious social issue in China, the Chinese government repeatedly asked the junta to crack down on the group. But the junta showed little enthusiasm for doing so.
According to a senior member of a minority ethnic force in eastern Myanmar, four powerful minority ethnic forces cooperated to crack down on the fraudsters in Shan State, with backing from China.
Around the same time, in October 2023, minority ethnic forces across the country began simultaneous attacks on the country’s military. In Shan State, the major city of Lashio fell to anti-junta forces in August 2024.
The senior member said that China had not approved of the minority ethnic forces attacking the military, as it only supported the forces in Shan State attacking the fraud group, adding that the attack on the military crossed a “red line.”
Wang’s visit to Myanmar came just after the fall of Lashio. At that time, anti-junta forces across Myanmar were on the verge of reaching Naypyitaw and Mandalay. The Myanmar military had to hurriedly introduce conscription as it needed to make up for lost soldiers. The junta had been driven into a corner.
Beijing thought that if all Myanmar was subsumed in fighting, the safety of China’s pipelines and the railway construction plan might be adversely affected. So Beijing chose stability and lent its support to the junta.
China sought to starve out a group in power near the border in Shan State by stopping trade with it, and forced the United Wa State Army, Myanmar’s largest armed minority ethnic group and a recipient of support from China, to stop supplying weapons to other ethnic groups in Shan State in order to weaken them.
In April this year, under China’s supervision, the Myanmar military recaptured Lashio.
During the period of civilian rule, China sought to win over Myanmar, and now the military junta relies on China.
When Min Aung Hlaing visited China in August, he told Chinese companies that the planned railways could be China’s gateway to the Indian Ocean, suggesting a willingness to help China expand to the Indian Ocean.
After the coup, Min Aung Hlaing also met with Russian President Vladimir Putin several times, asking that Russia take part in the development of the Dawei Special Economic Zone. Japan considered joining the project when the country was still under civilian rule.
Myanmar is also considering building small modular reactors, a type of next-generation nuclear power reactor, with the cooperation of Russia.
In Kyaukphyu and Dawei, there are plans to build deep-sea ports. But it is unclear whether the ports will be used solely for commercial purposes.
The Myanmar military is staging a comeback against minority ethnic forces in many places in the country, and its oppression of civilians is a serious matter.
Japan must help turn the attention of the United States back to the problem of Myanmar.